Navy Laser Gun Shoots down UAV

WASHINGTON (NNS) — Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), with support from Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren, for the second time successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed a threat representative Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) while in flight May 24 at San Nicholas Island, Calif.

This marks the first detect-thru-engage laser shoot-down of a threat representative target in an over-the-water, combat representative scenario.

A total of two UAV targets were engaged and destroyed in a maritime environment during the testing, the second series of successes for the U.S. Navy’s Laser Weapon System (LaWS) Program.

Members of NAVSEA’s Directed Energy and Electric Weapon Systems (DE&EWS) Program Office (PMS 405), Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS), Raytheon Missile Systems, and NSWC Dahlgren fired a laser through a beam director on a KINETO Tracking Mount, controlled by a MK 15 Close In Weapon System (CIWS). This brings to a total of seven UAVs destroyed by the Surface Navy’s first tactical development for fielding a Directed Energy weapon system.